


Saint Alicia

by Ma_Kir



Category: Live A Live (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Live a Live - Freeform, Lucretia - Freeform, Medieval Chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 20:45:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14363319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ma_Kir/pseuds/Ma_Kir
Summary: On her own personal journey, Princess Alicia of Lucretia comes to something of a revelation.





	1. Chapter 1

Her whole life, Alicia had been told about what happened to her mother. 

According to her father, the two of them had been reigning happily over Lucretia when the Demon King came and took her away from him. She had been told that her father had sent many brave warriors to the mountains of the East, to Devil's Peak, where they had never returned. It took the heroism of the champion Hash, and his stalwart friend the priest Uranus to destroy the King of Demons, and rescue her mother from his clutches.

But it wasn't only Alicia's mother who had been saved, but Alicia herself as she had still been in the Queen's womb at the time of her abduction. Unfortunately, the joy of her mother's return had been dimmed when she herself died birthing Alicia into the world. Perhaps that is why her father watches her so intently, perhaps more than just by virtue of being a member of Lucretia's royalty. 

She can tell, even now, having this tale recited to her by her father, by the Chancellor, by the soldiers, and all the servants, that her father -- the King of Lucretia -- values heroes. She wonders what happened to Hash and Uranus, why they no longer come to court. Alicia thinks to herself, seeing her father's love for her, and the concern of their subjects, that she would do well to find a Hero of her own. 

Perhaps, one day, part of those tales become almost her childhood fairytales, would come true. And Princess Alicia of Lucretia would marry her Hero.  
  
*

Alicia is a little older now. Really, she enjoys being in her garden. Her father once told her himself that it used to belong to her mother. And so, with her own blessing she and the servants maintain it. She even grows new flowers in the garden, on top of Lucretia Castle and requested that her father plant them throughout the rest of the grounds.

She used to find attending court fascinating, seeing all the different kinds of people -- from nobles, to soldiers, and even peasantry -- seeking an audience with the King. But her father is getting older. She can't help but see it. Her mother had been kidnapped two decades ago, and the grief of her death still weighs on him. He still attends court, as she does: sitting next to him when hearing others' petitions, attending ceremonies, feasts, and jousts. But most of the real work, the administrative functions, have been taken by the Chancellor. And Alicia admits to herself, especially now, that there is something she just doesn't ... like about his manner. 

The Chancellor is always flattering. Always seeking approval from her father, or herself. But she knows he is harsher to the peasant folk. Not within the court itself, or with any hard words in their presence, but sometimes the servants talk, and there are laws set into place. It's true, her father still makes his decrees but more and more she realizes that he simply has become more ceremonial than anything else, if he had ever been anything else. The Chancellor is the one communicating and having the decrees -- many, she suspects, being created and signed off on his own initiative -- while always seeming to support the finest nobles, the most elite warriors, the greatest artists, and the triumphs of the ordinary citizen. Somehow, at the end of each point of praise in court, everyone else's achievements almost seem to be all about _him_ as opposed to the actual people that accomplished these acts.

And there are so many soldiers. So many warriors being given royal titles or lands. So many made into knights. Aside from the battle with the Demon King so many years ago, Lucretia has not been at war in ages. She wonders if her father notices these things, but all he seems to talk about are the great achievements he is told of, and how he must find an heir to the throne.

It rankles Alicia a bit. _She_ is his daughter. She is the heir to Lucretia. Even so, she can't blame him. The politics have gotten tedious. And she had been discouraged from ever really pursuing these particulars. Her father said that she should let the Chancellor and their servants deal with these details, that war or battle if it ever came to it should be led by a Hero who can risk his life and survive all ordeals. He tells her, even now, that he plans to care for her and that her duties are to carry on their line, and provide moral and spiritual support -- even wisdom -- for their people. 

Alicia just wants to be left alone. Talking to the Chancellor tires her on a level that she can't quite explain, and her father only wants what's best for her and the Kingdom. Even so, as she sits in her garden reading the Illuminated Story of the Tale of Amlucretia -- the mythical giant fish of wisdom whose insight could only be gained through the offer of one's soul and well being, and from whom their entire Kingdom had been named -- she can't help but wish for someone who will come and give her something more than just this garden, and the court, and being more than just a symbol for her Kingdom, the consolation of her father, or something the Chancellor side-eyed whenever he thought she didn't notice.  
  
Alicia still wanted her Hero.  
  
*

His name is Oersted.

He has traveled the land with his steadfast companion, the Wizard Straybow. Tall, golden-haired, muscular and strong, Oersted regards her with a strong, clear, dark-eyed gaze. Originally, Alicia started to believe that the fairy tales feeling of being entrapped by beauty, of being entranced by someone else's actions, and time seeming to stand still whenever they talked -- no matter how briefly -- weren't true. Until she met Oersted.

He and his companion had been introduced to the court after they had foiled the depredations of some bandits and monsters on the road. Straybow actually talks the most, elaborating on all of their adventures. He is a fine storyteller, gesturing with his hands and staff, almost conjuring their tales into reality. But Oersted is generally more quiet, though she sees the way he smiles at Straybow's exaggerations and can tell they are fast friends: those who have seen blood, sweat, and tears together. 

And when he has audience with her, when he tells her quietly about the people he was glad he could save, the peasants who didn't have to fear getting robbed or slaughtered by thieves and creatures in the dark, and doing their part to maintain the peace of their homeland. He understates everything he accomplishes, and says more about Straybow and some of their other companions than himself. 

Alicia starts to see what her father sees in Oersted. For a young man who had no royal or noble blood, he is earnest and honest to a fault. He always calls her by her title and never presumes. In fact, whenever they meet -- and eventually they are encouraged to meet without her chaperones -- he always bows before her first before she has to insist that he rise. It makes something in her flutter, and something she can't name tingles when she takes his hands in hers.

She has never felt this way about anyone before. There is such conviction, such determination of purpose in his eyes when he tells her that he only wishes to serve Lucretia, her father, and herself. 

Even so, as Alicia understands these matters, for all the few but precious words and comely appearances, Oersted still has to prove himself. 


	2. Chapter 2

It is the Chancellor that suggests the Tournament. 

It's not the first time that Lucretia has had tournaments of battle. But this is the largest one to date. People of all families and classes are gathered. Alicia herself isn't particularly enamored with violence. She winces as lances splinter against armour, and swords draw blood. Warriors are carried off the jousting ground. Not all of them survive, sadly. Even though her father decreed a minimal amount of violence, these things do happen. 

This is unfortunately the case with Oersted. Up until this point, she had never seen the knight fight before. Straybow had told her how his friend fought, as did other soldiers through the forests and mountains of Lucretia, but words -- even brilliant ones like those of Straybow -- fail to convey the golden blur of blade and shield that Oersted became when he downed one opponent after another. His armour should have slowed him, but he moves fast as though wearing cloth. Even his weapon seems a natural, balanced, part of his body. 

Very few opponents can keep up with him. She sees that he tries not to kill, or wound them severely. But one man ... one falls down. He was from another place, arrogant and blustering. Oersted tries his best but one quick jab and the man is down. His ... son is screaming from the side lines as the soldiers take him away. For a few moments, Oersted seems to look up at her and his dark brown eyes are shaken. She knows it is just an accident of battle, but something in it doesn't particular sit well with her.

The determination to win won out over a man's life. She can't blame him. This whole Tournament was set up by her father and the Chancellor to grant her hand in marriage, to find the worthy whatever their bloodline or origin through merit to become the ruling heir of Lucretia and her husband. For some reason, to Alicia, it feels like it should more gratifying to see battle in one's name in fairy stories instead of reality. She hopes that the rounds will be over soon. She can see her father and the Chancellor watching Oersted: her father approvingly, and the Chancellor with obvious greed. She knows the man has been flattering Oersted the entire time, building a rapport with him, attempting to cement his place with him as he had done so with her father.

Alicia suspects that this Tournament has been purely designed to glorify Oersted to all the classes of Lucretia and its visitors, displaying to the world whom their new King will be, and how capable he is already. It is, in their minds, a done deal. She knows she is well loved by the populace. She's done nothing for or against them one way or the other. But this about Oersted, no matter how much the young knight might think otherwise.

Her father did ask her if this Tournament was what she wanted. Alicia didn't know what to say. She felt ... strange, having her marriage determined by another's skill with a weapon or brute force. A part of her felt like she was some prize to be won through blood. On the other hand, she knows how important it is for Lucretia to keep showing strength as the world's preeminent Kingdom. She knows how much her father wants to have an heir that will protect her. She strongly suspects he sees the spectre of her late mother in her own eyes. 

She can't refuse him, no matter what. 

But it's hard. It is very hard when Oersted and Straybow reach the final round of the Tournament. She almost can't bear to watch it. Oersted and Straybow are friends and companions, practically even _brothers_. They had often paid her court together. She admits that she enjoys Straybow's stories, his thoughts, and his wit. His hair is dark and long, where Oersted's is short, blonde, and spiky. He is tall and slender, his fine-boned hands always gesturing whenever he speaks. Straybow is well spoken and always has a crooked smile that is contagious. 

She likes Straybow. Perhaps he is in the Tournament to prove his mettle, to win other prizes, or maybe ... She can see it. The two companions pace around each other. Straybow had been doing fairly well in the Tournament himself. His thin, spry frame was deceptive. The shapes he conquered out of his staff and in the air would confound his opponents until one quick, decisive blow would incapacitate them. Oersted fought with strength and endurance, with speed, while Straybow was all about evasion, clever goading, and a sleight of hand that ended with his opponent's defeat. It was just like how he performed magic tricks for her amusement in her garden as she and Oersted looked onwards ...

But Straybow's clever guile only goes so far. If Alicia has to be honest with herself, she has been worried about him. There had been made close calls in the Tournament where a sword or a blade almost got him. She knows from their stories that he is often at Oersted's side, providing support for him against hordes of foes. But fighting directly, without many opportunities for distance and thought ... The fact that he made it this far, all the way to Oersted, spoke of his skill. She sees them pacing around each other, testing each other's defenses. She knows they have sparred before. They know each other's strengths and weaknesses. They know how to defeat one another.

It is over before it even begins.

Oersted closes the distance between him and his friend, bringing the pummel of his blade into the Wizard's stomach. The Wizard managed to unleash several crimson shapes cutting through the air, which Oersted had dodged. A few hit him, but the damage seemed negligible. The blow to his stomach was not.   
  
As Straybow goes down, the crowd in adoration of Oersted, cheers. Alicia feels sadness, even though she knows she should be glad that the knight has won. This wasn't the place for Straybow, a showman and a scholar, a warrior of the mind against strong men pummeling each other: all for the sake of glory and power ... all for her ... 

Her father cheerfully calls out Oersted's name. It couldn't have worked out better for him ... for the realm. The most powerful warrior, already beloved by the villagers and the populace, a master fighter and good man is now practically her father's son. Oersted had, yet again, beaten all of the odds. He had defeated all warriors, even facing down his best friend and beating him to achieve his heart's desire. 

Alicia.

Even she can't help but admire the sheer determination of the young knight. Even afterwards, as Oersted helps Straybow back onto his feet, giving him some Naori Grass for his wounds ... she watches as they shake hands. But she thinks she sees something wounded in Straybow's eyes, something deeper than any cut or bruise, when he looks at Oersted and up at her. 

Alicia ponders over it only briefly as Oersted is led up to her on the dais. Perhaps she just imagined it. Oersted has more than proven himself. He is the Champion of Lucretia now. She can't help but admire that determination, the way he fought, the way he acted for what he desired, and what he believed in. Later, up in the Tower, he actually bows to her again.   
  
But she will have none of it. They are equals now. And she was never better than he. Her whole life she spent sheltered here, in the Castle, while he and Straybow fought against the forces that threatened Lucretia. With all of his power and skill, his chivalry, his honour, his enduring friendship, even his sportsmanship towards his friend whom lost a battle against him, and his humility, Alicia knew that Oersted was more than a match for her.

He had never lost, nor would ever lose a battle of any kind. 

He was perfect.

She tells him that she believes in him. And she does. He is everything she had been raised to expect and more. But why does a part of her feel ... hollow? Is it still too unreal that this is happening?  
  
The Princess of Lucretia never really has the chance to question this feeling, as a dark shadow suddenly falls over her ...  
  
And her nightmare begins. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The last thing Alicia hears before being plunged into darkness, being carried away into the skies by another winged shadow as Oersted fought the monster in front of him, was the knight calling her name. 

She feels the wind buffeting her, cold and pitiless, its talons sinking into her skin. A reptilian musk fills her nostrils when the air isn't stinging her nose and throat. She can't even scream anymore. Sometimes, there is darkness. She jolts and she is still in the creature's grasp. Consciousness comes and goes in the aether, and when it returns all Alicia can hear is her father telling her about the monster that took her mother twenty years ago, the King of Demons. 

Somehow, as the Eastern mountains loom she knows exactly where the creature is taking her. 

Alicia tries to struggle, but she is like a pale worm in the claws of a predator. They near Devil's Peak, looming over them like a jagged spear even into the sky. The darkness and evil emanating from the top of the mountains is palpable. The Princess of Lucretia loses consciousness again, but her last thoughts aren't of how the Demon King is going to torture or consume her, or how no one will be able to follow her here without Hash's blade -- the sword Brion -- or how filled with despair her father will be when his worst nightmare occurs all over again. 

No. All Alicia remembers is the look in Oersted's eyes when she was carried away by this abomination. She knows that in midst of all the fear and rage is the same determination she saw the first time she met him at court, when he defeated his enemies and even his friend in the Tournament. Alicia remembers Oersted's determination and she knows that it will be strong enough to overcome the being that hates all humans. 

Whatever else, Princess Alicia told the truth on the Tower the night after Oersted's victory. She will always believe in him.

*

The Demon seems to forget about her after it places her inside of the chamber, a dark place that is practically a cavern. Alicia has lost track of time in this place. She can't get out of here. Helplessness gnaws at her stomach. Any moment the Demon King or his minions could come in here and kill her ... or worse. She is cold. The wind howls outside, droning into her ears, into her mind, into her soul. Princess Alicia of Lucretia wants to be back with her garden. She wants to be around her faithful servants and the people that love her.

She misses her father who only wanted the best for her. She misses the mother she never knew, and wants to be with her. And Straybow, who makes her laugh.

And Oersted.

In the cold and the dark, Alicia huddles against a wall. She can practically feel the Demon King hovering over her head, as she whispers -- over and again -- for Oersted to save her ... Even as the King of Demons tells her that he will fail, that he has abandoned her, that his will to power is greater than his love for her ... that she will rot here, and die slowly in increments. 

Alicia tries not to listen to the hissing impressions in her mind. She has to keep believing. She will get out of here. Oersted will find here and rescue her. He will destroy the Demon King once again, save her, and save Lucretia forevermore, this powerful man, her perfect warrior. 

And then he will become her King. She wants this. She wants this with all of her heart.

And he never loses. He never loses ...

This is what Alicia, the Princess of Lucretia, tells herself over and again as she prays he will save her, even as a kernel of something else begins to grow from the night Oersted won the right to her hand, in the corners of the hollow place inside her heart.

*

Time hangs in the air like stalactites, looming over her head. A part of Alicia supposes that she should be hungry, or thirsty, or that she will need to use a chamber pot. But none of these urges come upon her. She is stuck in this chamber, which is ornate and carved as though part of some form of ancient Temple. The only thing filling her is fear and, something else. It is something that she realizes she's felt before, but in a dull and more subdued manner: a background noise that she has gotten used to over time in the form of another name.

Once, she would have called it boredom. But without the swaddling clothes of her sheltered, protected life muffling the sound of it, like the howling winds outside, she knows what it is really is now. She wonders if Oersted is coming. She wonders if her father is coming. If anyone is coming for her. For the first time in whole life, Princess Alicia of Lucretia feels despair. 

And it speaks to her. Perhaps it is the Demon King, or one of his phantasmal minions. Maybe it is the shadows, or her own unraveling mind. Perhaps she is finally going mad.

It tells her that she is a tool. It tells her that she has always been nothing but a tool. She is just breeding stock for her father to continue the royal line, a brood mare to sire a blood heir for the stag that is her chosen husband. It tells her that she was trained to be willfully dumb, that she is replaceable, that she can be replaced. It tells her that the Chancellor wants to use her and her children to rule Lucretia and increase his own power, that her own subjects see her as a pleasant little doll with no substance, she is a thing of whims and whimsy and no agency for herself ...

And she is Oersted's key to the Kingdom. That he has always been playing the perfect gentleman, the immaculate knight, the good man who just needs to distract her father and the Chancellor enough to deal with them, then find her ... or leave her be and ...

No. She refuses to believe that. She is not worthless. She is a Princess of Lucretia. And she gave her word. Her word is no less valid than that of a knight's. In fact, it is more so. She believes in Oersted. She will not trust these lies, these untruths ... This place. This place is cloying. It is whispering to her mind ... She has to stop listening. 

Then, she hears _him_.

She hears his voice! She thinks she hears him and ... and Straybow and some others ... Their voices are coming through a wall. She can't make out the words, but there is shouting and clashing. Something screams. Then the chamber rumbles. It shakes and she almost loses her footing. She calls out for Oersted. She screams, telling him she is in here! She is in here! 

But there is silence. Deafening silence. 

Tears well up in Alicia's throat, ugly and black, and she wonders if her mind created the entire thing. If any of this just happens.   
  
And then, someone calls her name. Someone nearby. Someone grabs her hand. Her mind is numb as she is pulled, gently but firmly, to her feet. Relief fills her. He found her. Oersted actually found her after all. 

But as the darkness is banished by the burning of a sudden flame, Alicia doesn't see her betrothed.   
  
Instead, she looks up at the face of Straybow. 


	4. Chapter 4

Alicia's relief turns into disappointment, a crushing, miserable falling pit of gravity in her stomach. 

It begins when Straybow tells her that he and Oersted, along with the old heroes Hash and Uranus managed to get to Devil's Peak. They fought many monsters on their way here, and managed to slay the creature that abducted her. But then everything had gone wrong. Hash had died in the midst of fighting the Demon Lord. There was a cave in, caused by the creature, that nearly killed Straybow himself: separating him from Uranus and Oersted. 

He won't look at her when he speaks, his face illuminated by his conjured fire, and then his magic as he lights the entire chamber. Straybow tells her that before the earthquake in the mountain, he had been following this ancient architecture, that he believes it to be of mystical origin. This is what saved him from being destroyed. It also led him to this chamber. And to her. 

The Wizard looks miserable and exhausted. He still will not meet her eyes. She asks him what happened to Oersted. He looks away from her when he tells her that the knight had run away, leaving him and Hash behind. 

Alicia doesn't believe it. She can't believe it. Straybow sees the doubt in her eyes and tells her that he had only seen it in passing before the rocks came down on him. That perhaps he was coming back with reinforcements. The Princess wants to believe this, but there is a haunted quality in Straybow's eyes that she doesn't like and can't name. She wants to get out of here. Now. 

He tells her that there is a way out of here, but it is mystically sealed, possibly by the Demon King himself. Even so, he is figuring out the glyphs and magicks of this place. Perhaps with his power, he will be able to free them both. And the Wizard, with one last direct, lingering look at her face, starts working, chanting under his breath and moving his staff as he lights all the runes and symbols in the room with mystical power. 

And Alicia, she tries not to think what happened. The death of Hash is bad enough, but Oersted running away? Leaving her here? It doesn't make sense. Perhaps, as Straybow continues his investigation, they will come to the truth. She is grateful. She finally has an ally here. A friend. Straybow has found her. She will be safe now ...

And Oersted will come back. He will return for her ...

*

Alicia feels nothing as she and Straybow look into the orb.

It is an artifact, something that the Wizard has salvaged from this place, some kind of distant viewing device. He activates and controls it, trying to find their out, to see where their allies are ... 

What she sees ... punches her in the gut. Oersted is at the Castle. He is sleeping in a bed. He didn't get more troops or come back for her. He is just lying there, sleeping. Suddenly, she watches as he jolts up, with his sword in his hand: the sword Brion from legend. She has never seen that look in Oersted's eyes before. They glimmer beyond determination. There is an obsession in there. They glitter -- they _burn_ \-- with malice. With pure hatred.

She watches as he gets up. And then the scene changes. Her father is in the throne room. He is pacing, worried. She sees how careworn he looks, how worried he truly is. It is as though he has aged centuries overnight. It breaks her heart. And then, Oersted is there. Her father walks towards his future son-in-law, and holds out his hands. He looks like he is asking him a question. And then ...  Then Oersted raises Brion and ... and ...

Alicia is trembling on the ground. There is something stuck in her throat ... in her chest. The wind is howling, screaming ... Straybow's arms around around her. She realizes, after a while, that the sound isn't from the mountain, or outside of it. It is coming from her own mouth. 

Straybow holds her as she cries. She buries her face into his cloak and weeps. She feels like she is being ripped apart from the inside. She can't believe this. She can't. She ...

But she sees it again. She sees Oersted raising Brion, with hatred in his eyes, and cutting her father down. None of it makes sense. None of it ...

*

She is still holding onto Straybow when he tells her what happened. What he thinks had happened.

The Demon Lord they fought outside this chamber had just been a servant. Hash and Uranus didn't recognize it as the Demon King that they killed years ago. He believes that someone else was controlling it. Someone else came into this place, charged with the power of the original Demon King, and took his place. 

Even Straybow looks unconvinced that Oersted planned this entire misadventure. The words just come out hollowly from the Wizard's mouth. He says that his friend had always wanted to win. At any cost. But he had no idea. He tells her that he had watched as the Chancellor and the soldiers took Oersted captive after the murder of her father, but he knows from experience that he will break out from imprisonment: that no warrior in Lucretia or elsewhere can match Oersted's power. 

He looks her in the eye and tells her that he is going to come here. 

It doesn't make sense. Alicia thinks if ... if Oersted is the Demon King, why kidnap her? Why not just kill her? Why not just kill Straybow? Why all of this planning? 

Straybow tells her that he isn't sure. He suspects that he might not be the Demon King per see, but he made a deal with his former servants: that he needed Brion to get into the Peak, and used Hash to do so. He was going to kill all of them here, and take Alicia back: making him look like the hero, all the while eliminating the only other people that could stop him. Then he would come back to the mountain. 

But Straybow admits that there is the possibility that Oersted didn't plan on that cave in, that he wanted to use it to properly kill all of them. Uranus is probably dead as well, by Oersted's influence, and he is coming back here to get Alicia: to prove his innocence to Lucretia, or finish what he started. 

Straybow still can't look at her. She can see the circles under his eyes. This place has dark power. She knows this. It is probably affecting even him now. Straybow tells her that his only chance against Oersted is that he probably isn't the Demon King, that this place was made by the Demon King, and that it had a power he could use to augment his own: to give him the energy to ... deal with his former friend. To use dark power against itself. 

Alicia might have thought about the dangers of utilizing something created by the King of Demons, about how it might compromise someone's mind, how it was already affecting their own perceptions of reality. But she is numb. Her father has just died. She knows the Chancellor will seize power, especially if she doesn't return. The people of Lucretia will be afraid, even if they know the truth about their ... hero. Especially if they do. 

And Oersted. He lied to her. All this time. The numbness is filled with rage. Alicia doesn't say anything more.

*

Straybow does the best he can. She sees he is exhausted. The effort of controlling the power of this place is taxing him. A part of her wonders if it is affecting him in another way, but all she can think about is the crooked smile, the easy wit, the gentility of the man in front of her broken by betrayal. She remembers the Tournament and how Oersted effortlessly took him down, smashing into his stomach as though he were a flimsy banner, crumpling him as if he were nothing. 

She remembers that day, seeing the humiliation in the Wizard's eyes. The sadness. She recalls Oersted killing the warrior who had a son. She sees her father dying again. But then she recalls Straybow. Straybow always having a kind word for her. Always performing a magic trick. Always making her laugh.

A man like that doesn't deserve to be humiliated in a fighting arena by brutes pretending to be just, by rulers that deliberately engineered a contest to make him the straw man to give their champion an easy victory, before he betrayed them too ... 

Alicia tells Straybow all of this. Straybow holds her close. He tells her he will use the power of the Demon King to destroy Oersted, then remove the Chancellor, and bring peace to Lucretia forever: that as a Wizard King he will bring diplomacy, and nuance back to the Kingdom. He will abolish all fighting games and spread her garden everywhere. It's words that she needs to hear. 

Straybow rescued her. He found her. If not for him, she would continue to be a prisoner of the darkness, of a man who lied to her and betrayed her. But she recalls how he looked at her, that day, and all those other days. All those times when Oersted courted her and he had to sit on the sidelines and watch ...

When her lips meet his, when their bodies merge, she doesn't feel the darkness anymore, of this place or in herself. As Straybow holds her, as he tells her the final confrontation with their enemy approaches, she throws away childish things. She is going to be the Queen that Lucretia needs. 

And with her blessing, Straybow will be the one to avenge it. To avenge her. 


	5. Chapter 5

Straybow told her to wait for him as he went out to confront his former friend. 

But Alicia didn't listen.

Straybow is the only person she has left. After he took his leave, literally thrumming with the power of this place, with more power than he ever had in his life, there had been silence. Then, at some point, the howling outside stopped. 

Alicia manages to find her way to the exit for the first time in ages. The skies are dark and filled with clouds. The ground outside is almost grey in the lack of light and uneven. Gravel crunches under her feet. The shrieking wind is back, but it is distant when compared to the pounding of blood in her ears. 

To the blood staining the ground.

Straybow lies on the ground. His cloak is tattered and ripped. His staff lies away from his hands, completely shattered. Blood pools underneath him. His eyes glare up sightlessly at the dead sky. Kneeling over him is Oersted. Brion is stained with the Wizard's blood. Alicia works her mouth. No sound comes out of her throat, at first. She falls to her knees in front of Straybow's body. Oersted speaks. He tells her something, but she can't really hear it. He steps towards her. 

Alicia's hands almost act on their own accord. They reach into Straybow's cloak and find the dagger. Oersted stops moving towards her. She can see him now. His face is haggard. His eyes are wide. For a few moments, she thinks she sees tear tracks down his face. 

She screams at him. The darkness of this place rails inside of her. It all spills out. She tells him that she loved Straybow. That he came for her, rescued her, when he gave up. When he didn't bother. She tells him that Straybow lost to him his entire life. Perhaps, as she says this she distantly knows she isn't entirely talking about Straybow as she tells Oersted that he has never know what it is like to lose.

But he will now.

Princess Alicia of Lucretia takes the dagger and plunges it into her chest, spitefully looking up at Oersted's ashen face, not wanting to give him or anyone any satisfaction. Her whole life she has been a tool. Of her father, of the Chancellor, of Lucretia ... and Oersted himself. But not anymore. As Alicia, the Princess of Lucretia, falls onto Straybow, onto her _true_ love's corpse, cradling him ... until the darkness takes her away for one last time. 

*

Alicia thought that she had nothing left to lose. 

But she was wrong.

Her body is gone, but her soul remains in existence, writhing, in torment ... 

With _him_.

Somehow he drew their souls back. Her's and Straybow's. The thing that used to be Oersted, whom even in her worst pain, she still thinks of as Oersted, summoned them at the place where they died on Devil's Peak. Alicia taunted him, telling him he was a monster, that he would gain no satisfaction from her, that there was nothing more he could ever do to her now. 

She was wrong.

First Oersted, his brown eyes replaced with a hideous yellow that chilled her spectral depths, made Straybow tell her the truth. Straybow, the Wizard that had charmed her, had charmed her in more ways than one. She doesn't know when the Demon King's sanctum enchanted him, or if it even had. Perhaps Straybow was the one that had made a deal with the demons of the mountain. Perhaps he discovered the mountain with Oersted and the others and it played on his fears and insecurities. All she knew was that night, on Devil's Peak, when Oersted forced Straybow's spirit to tell her that he had used an illusion to make Oersted kill her father ....

And proceeded to lie to her about everything. 

Back then, Alicia would have vomited if she had still possessed a body. He told her that she had just been a bonus, that in reality it had all been about one-upping Oersted, about taking away everything he ever cared about. She had just been a tool. 

A tool for another manipulator.

At first, she thought that Oersted had been lying, had been using his power to make Straybow lie. But it made too much sense. It all made too much sense. 

After that, Oersted called her a shallow, treacherous, liar and hypocrite. And then he began to punish her.

Even now, a small but vocal part of Alicia remembers being ripped apart, turned inside out, making everyone see all of her sins laid bare. Oersted made Straybow change her. When she can think, and mercifully it isn't as often, she perceives herself imprisoned in a smooth mask of artificial beauty ... a shell ripping itself away piece by piece to expose all of the bile and hatred inside of her. 

In the beginning, she was torn from her place in a nightmarish plane and made to shred men, women, and children. In the early days, she recognized many of them as her own subjects. The Demon King ... Oersted, would drive her out and make her kill. Over and over again. Sometimes, to the part of herself that remains, it's as though he is punishing himself every time every time he uses her. Every time he looks at her again. A part of her, distant, linked to his deranged mind, remembers one statement echoing over and again.

It drowns out the screams and curses of the souls of all Lucretia. It is louder than her father's weeping, than the Chancellor alternatively begging for his life and screaming at Oersted, even what she thinks is the whispers of Straybow apologizing to her over and again, and asking himself if he did all of this -- helped create all of this horror across the land, across space and time ... across eternity itself. 

She hears her voice, the way it used to be before the Demon King turned it into a perpetual scream, telling someone ... someone ... that she would still believe in them.

And it is in those cruel, lucid moments that the apparition known as Saint Alicia realizes what she is being scourged for, why she is being punished. 

She stopped believing in Oersted. She gave into her doubt. She gave into her despair.

Saint Alicia lost hope. 


	6. Chapter 6

She doesn't know how many thousands of years or lifetimes she has drifted in the nightmarescape that is the Demon King's mind, the twisted astral remnants of a once great and proud land. 

It's hard to retain her memories, or to keep herself from remembering the pain of eternity. Sometimes she forgets who she is. Sometimes she wonders if she was always here, if she will remain here in this place, eternal and in constant pain. But she never forgets why she is here.

Never.

Her sin is the sin of Lucretia. If there had been any storytellers left, save perhaps Amlucretia himself with wisdom that can only be earned by pain, they would have said that Lucretia died -- all of it -- because its people failed the test of good and evil. They stopped believing in hope and embraced hatred.

If that was the case, then the Demon King is the only worthy ruler they would ever have. 

Saint Alicia hated. She hated Oersted. She hated Straybow. She hated her father and the Chancellor and her own, ignorant, stupid people. And Saint Alicia hated herself most of all.

After a while, though, she would forget. For a few moments, it is as though she is back in the Castle and the gardens. Other times she is in her chamber. She isn't in a state of constant violation. The being that became Saint Alicia just drifts through limbo. Thinking about everything. 

Thinking about the sin of despair.

It grows beyond the people and the land. She thinks, and ponders over its place in humanity. She considers how groups of people emulate themselves, mimicking each other, following the loudest voice. She looks at cunning and arrogance. Sometimes, she remembers a drive that she once admired. Conviction. Willpower. Determination. Eventually, like the remnants of any massive explosion, the ashes settle. She knows she isn't forgotten. Her Master can summon her whenever he pleases. For ages, there is just darkness and the lost spirits of those who failed to believe in something better, and those that failed to stop that cataclysm from happening.

Then, the realm of the mind ripples. 

It's ages. She has almost forgotten her name. She ... doesn't recognize them. They are strangers. It has been a long time since visitors have come to the lands of Lucretia, such as it is now. She remembers her manners. They have been talking with her subjects, with her friends and family. They want to leave. They ... they want to _help_? 

In that moment, she remembers. She remembers and realizes what destroyed them. It wasn't Oersted. Or Straybow. She knows what the Demon King is now. He is the opposite of these strangers, these visitors ... these odd heroes coming to this land, to stop him ... to liberate them. They faced the darkness and they held fast. They won.

Oersted lost that struggle, the age-old conflict that tests all heroes. All of Lucretia lost that struggle when they abandoned him.

With a power she never thought she had before, with a sense of will that she never had when she was still alive, she gathers a fraction of her power -- his power -- and creates an object of pure determination: a glove like her gardener's gloves, like a gauntlet, like a fist ... She hopes they will find it, that one will pick it up and ...

And when they touch it, away from the trappings of royalty, nobility, and chivalry, for the first time in ages Saint Alicia manifests fully in the dream. She can't look at them. She covers her face in her hands. She doesn't know if it is all rotten and evil. She doesn't know if it is cold and horrifically perfect. She can't bear them to see her. She can't ... bear the fact that she failed her people and everyone so completely. 

But then, she realizes ... it doesn't have to remain that way. 

She knows it is a long shot. Oersted has gained too much power over the millennia, over all of space and time. But ... he summoned them here. Perhaps some part of him remembers, or wants to remember. Maybe he wants to rub the hypocrisies others into the faces of new people, new beings with pretensions at nobility and heroism. Maybe he needs some humanity with which to teach his vaunted lessons.

Or maybe he just wants the nightmare to finally end.   
  
Regardless, she knows he will not make it easy for them. She remembers that drive, the determination to succeed at all costs, even if it is against his best interests. She struggles, trying to find the right words, knowing that if they get far enough he _will_ summon her again. He will use her power to make them see the worst of themselves. But perhaps ... it will be for the last time ...

 _"Please ..."_ She manages to say, somehow knowing it is in the mind of just one of the heroes, but knowing he will tell the rest. _"Please stop him ..."_ She pauses. _"Oersted ..."_  

Then she touches the heroes and banishes them from this realm. She knows they are back in the remnants of Lucretia and its villages. They will go to Devil's Peak. They will get the holy sword. They will finish what was started so many years ago. 

Once, long ago, there was a young girl that used to read tales of chivalry: of heroism vanquishing monstrosity, and knights rescuing damsels in distress. They were stories of princesses that were kidnapped by Demon Kings, or married off to Princes and Champions, or of love betrayed destroying friendships and humanity's attempts at utopia. But perhaps that young girl simply read the wrong stories. Perhaps she should have read the other tales similar to that of Amlucretia. Maybe she should recalled the holy texts that priests like Uranus would have read: tales of people thrown into the worst possible places, facing their fears, their demons, destroying their preconceptions of who they are, nearly being consumed by doubt, marked by powers beyond their understanding, until they found grace again, until they remembered their faith. These stories of ordinary mortals hallowed by blood, suffering, and mistakes, redeemed by revelations, became the tales of saints.   
  
And at this moment, for the first time in ages, Saint Alicia feels something else other than guilt, or anger, or regret. She remembers something more.   
  
Saint Alicia feels hope again. 


End file.
